


The Lantern

by Yevynaea



Series: Lost in the Woods [1]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Corruption, Gen, Pain, Short One Shot, Transformation, and i'm a terrible person, but i had to, first cipher twins now this, ok basically the dealio is, the beast works by potc davy jones rules, why can't i resist corruption fics, yes i know this sort of maybe goes against canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's one version of the tale, where the lantern stays lit long enough for the boys to get home.<br/>But there's another tale that doesn't go quite the same way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lantern

“Are you ready to see true darkness?” The Beast asks menacingly, as all the light in the world gets sucked away, and Wirt squeaks out a frightened reply. Then he clears his throat and tries again.

"Are you?" With that, Wirt blows out the light.

"Don’t!" The Beast returns the world to normal-- as normal as the Unknown gets, anyway-- but it's too late. The lantern is dark. And the Beast _screams._ It's a sound that can barely be categorized as a scream at all, really; it's low and deafening and completely inhuman, and the Beast starts to peel apart like the frayed end of a rope.

Branches and vines reach from the fast-disappearing creature to Wirt, insubstantial as fog and shadows but they still somehow manage to wrap themselves over him and burrow under his skin. His vision goes white with pain, and Wirt screams when he feels the branches circle his bones. He can hear Beatrice and the woodsman calling him, but their voices sound too far away to sound like anything more than echoes, and he's in too much agony to try and listen to them.

The shadows stop, and his eyes start working again just in time for him to see expressions of horror settle on the faces of his friends-- part of him takes a moment to be grateful that Greg is still asleep, but the rest of him is filled with unease.

"What is it?" Wirt asks, but his voice isn't as hesitant as it always is. It's smooth and menacing and even though it's still _his voice,_ there's something sickeningly, worryingly familiar about those little differences. Beatrice shakes her head, her eyes still wide with dismay and her feathers ruffled in distress.

The woodsman takes a quick breath in, and Wirt spins to face him, making the man stumble backwards in fear. Something nearly throws Wirt off balance, a weight on either side of his head that was never there before, and he can see everything in bright contrast, like he's looking at everything through headlights. A deep sort of dread settles in the boy's stomach as he begins to realize what's happened. (Truthfully he realized it before, understood as soon as the shadows came at him, but it was too awful a possibility so he refused to accept what he already knew.)

With a _whoosh,_ a feeling not unlike having the wind blow through your bones, Wirt feels a great big _something_ disappear from inside him that he never fully realized was there until now that it isn't anymore. The something goes from Wirt to the ground in front of him, he can feel it as surely as if it had been tied to his insides with a string, and now it's in the wrong place and the feeling of that makes him want to scream again. The something-- the _soul,_ Wirt's soul-- curls around itself in between panes of glass, taking the place of its predecessor.

And the lantern relights.


End file.
